Cover for a friend’s bad choices long enough and you become an accessory to their worst season.

Keeping a friend’s secret and carrying their situation are not the same thing. Covering once is loyalty. Covering every week means the thing gets to continue because it has never cost anybody anything, and you have quietly become part of what keeps it running. The longer that goes on, the harder it gets for either of you to say a word about it.

Tell them once, in private, without a lecture attached: you are done covering, and you are still their friend. If it is the kind of trouble that frightens you, bring in an adult you trust. Loyalty was never meant to include going down with somebody.